Review: Scates' 'Air Pocket' isn't just a lot of hot air

Published 5:30 am, Saturday, April 17, 2004

Leslie Scates
is a minimalist who choreographs as much for faces as for bodies. When all the parts are working -- as they frequently do in
Air Pocket
, her first evening-length show -- the result is maximum fun.

Scates has been part of Houston's dance scene since 1989 and has worked with at least a half-dozen troupes. She also organized the quirky Drive by Dancing project a few years ago, which staged performances along Houston roadsides. Air Pocket is suffused with the furrowed-brow humor that's characterized some of her work in the past.

In the program, she says the show's title is a metaphor for "the time periods (long and short) we all have in which to communicate, play, work, fight, nurture and live, grow and learn." But it's also about breathing: "Every moment of my life has one common thread. ... I was breathing at the time," she writes.

The first section, The Vine, is a quiet solo to a score by Doren Branard that mixes baroque music, playground and nature sounds. Scates' movements suggest creatures diving below a surface and coming up for air. They could be fish, ducks, frogs or maybe just humans on a too-busy day. It works precisely because it's so open to interpretation. What Scates doesn't do is as important as what she does. She never "gasps" for air; the "breath" comes in movements such as arms that pop open like a flower.

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I won't spoil the next piece, DogSong, with too much analysis. It's a lighthearted gem of precise absurdity for four dancers in kiddie chairs. Scates, John Box, Natasha Manley and JoDee Engle create an entertaining, rhythmic beat from words, a cappella singing and breathy sounds while performing simple physical drills. The words ripple down the line, perfectly timed: "Hell." "Yes." "What?" "Huh?" (Pause.) "Shut your mouth!" Messages on their T-shirts read like attitude-spiced Valentine sentiments: You Wish. Bad With Women. Cake Sniffer.

There's more dancing in Frenchy, but the cartoony fun continues. Scates reverses blown kisses into aggressive spitting and turns fanny pats into rhythmic accents. If that's all there were to it, Frenchy might just be so much je ne sais quoi. But the charm of Scates' work is making zany characters sympathetic. Frenchy pokes fun at putting on airs. (How could one be serious, anyway, when a voice overhead says, "I want to be French with you"?) With her tumbling, leaping and partnering dynamics, Scates makes assets out of wildly different body types that some choreographers might see as a handicap. She finds just the right playful ground for tall Joe Modlin and round, petite Penny Tchirhart, who were excellent. Scates was marvelous -- she's the queen of face-making -- and Marcello de sa Martins and Rebecca Borden also brought fun to their parts.

Unfinished, the show's high-energy finale, pitches bodies combatively around the stage. It seems to be about forces of opposition and rebound: Punch a body here, watch it go there. But its most effective section is the sly duet for Scates and Box, who make a few moments of sitting on a bench seem like an eventful trip down Highway 1 in a convertible. A fan blows their hair back as schmaltzy jazz plays. They look at each other and around. They manipulate each other, sometimes not gently. Waves of life seem to happen to them. It's funny and poignant. And they drive on.

Air Pocket continues tonight at 8 p.m. at DiverseWorks, 1117 East Freeway. Tickets are $10-$20 at 713-335-3445.